Category: Off the Beaten Track

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Off the Beaten Track #7: One Word That Means The World (Arkhipov) by Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate

The Cover of One Word That Means the World (Arkhipov)
The Cover of One Word That Means the World (Arkhipov)

The latest single from London-based prog rock band, Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate is taken from their eighth studio album The Uncertainty Principle due to be released later in 2024. It’s called One Word That Means The World (Vasily Arkhipov).

The band enjoy a high concept for their songs – their previous album The Light of Ancient Mistakes included songs on the Cold War, English MPs’ discovery of Hitler’s atrocities, and the  miserable childhood of author John le Carré.

The new song is dedicated to the Soviet naval officer Vasily Arkhipov (pictured below). During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, Arkhipov was onboard a B-59 submarine, part of a flotilla stationed near Cuba, hiding so deep in the sea that it hadn’t received radio signals from Moscow for several days. When the US Navy began to drop depth charges to try to force the submarine to the surface, the captain and the political officer, assuming that they were now at war with the US, made the decision to launch their T-5 nuclear torpedo. Arkhipov managed to persuade the others not to launch the nuclear weapon but to surface and obtain orders from Moscow. The submarine was then ordered to return to Soviet territory. Arguably, Arkhipov’s brave action saved the world from nuclear war – the simple Russian word ‘nyet’ (‘no’) was the ‘one word that means the world’.

Arkhipov’s clear-headed decision is even more remarkable for being taken in extreme physical conditions. The submarine’s batteries were failing; there was no air conditioning and the heat was extreme; high levels of carbon dioxide caused feelings of suffocation and panic. Yet on their return home the crew were treated as if they had let their country down, although Arkhipov did rise to the rank of vice admiral in the Soviet navy before he retired in 1988.

Vasili Arkhipov - Image courtesy of Olga Arkhipova

Vasily Arkhipov – Image courtesy of Olga Arkhipova

Arkhipov’s predicament is soon turned into a much wider existential crisis in the song’s lyrics which begin with specifics but soon widen to the haunting refrain,

We don’t know who we are till we’re forced to decide/We don’t know what’s inside

The song begins in medias res, with a spiky, slightly frenetic guitar solo, immediately evoking the claustrophobic setting, ‘trapped beneath the waves … The burning lifeless air…’ The sense of intense claustrophobia is enhanced by the octave doubling on the vocals, similar to the vocal effect on Pink Floyd’s ‘Welcome to the Machine’ from their 1975 album Wish You Were Here. There’s also a rising synth motif which has a similar tonal quality to the treated piano part at the opening of Echoes from Pink Floyd’s Meddle (1971), evoking the sonar from the submarine.

Malcolm Galloway and Mark Gatland

Malcolm Galloway and Mark Gatland

The doubling of the vocal line stops during the chorus, creating a more intimate feel, showing that the words ‘We don’t know who we are…’ are more personal to Arkhipov’s situation, whilst at the same time being of more universal relevance by using the word ‘we’ rather than addressing him directly. That changes again at the end of the chorus when Arkhipov is directly addressed with the poignant words, ‘That was the day when you said no.’

There’s a further shift in of point of view with the words ‘That was years ago, and now I’m told I’m a hero.’ We are now seeing events from Arkhipov’s perspective, and the vocals become more restrained and thoughtful. The point of view then switches to the universal ‘we’ and back to Arkhipov again in the first-person singular. There’s a powerful guitar solo, again suggesting the anguish Arkhipov must have suffered when making his decision. The song ends with Arkhipov’s poignant words, ‘I found out when I said no.’ It’s a fine song, a worthy and passionate tribute to a brave man. to whom the single is dedicated.

Personnel

Music by Malcolm Galloway and Mark Gatland

Lyrics by Malcolm Galloway

Malcolm Galloway – vocals, guitars, producer, mixing, mastering

Mark Gatland – bass guitar, co-producer, vocal engineer

Artwork by Malcolm Galloway, made with DALLE-3 (AI art) and Photoshop.

The B-side of the single is the instrumental ‘Music For Dancing’ – Written and performed by Malcolm Galloway (guitar, synths/keyboards, producer, mastering) and Mark Gatland (bass guitar, synths, co-producer).

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Off the Beaten Track #6: My Blood is Gold by Myrkur

The Cover of Spine by Myrkur from which My Blood is gold is taken
The Cover of Spine by Myrkur from which My Blood is gold is taken

The cover of Spine, from which My Blood is Gold is taken.

The Danish composer, vocalist and classically trained multi-instrumentalist, Amalie Bruun, released her debut album under her own name in 2006. In 2011 she formed the indie pop band Ex Cops, a duo, with Brian Harding. The band split in 2014, and she started to release music under the name Myrkur, Icelandic for darkness. At first she tried to release her music anonymously, and her first EP was simply called Myrkur (2014). When a fan guessed her identity, she decided there was no point hiding. Her first album M (2015) was an amalgam of influences, including black metal and Scandinavian folk. Her second album Mareridt (‘Nightmares’) released in 2017 was even more diverse in style, veering towards gothic folk rather than black metal. In 2020 she released Folkesange, inspired by the success of a YouTube video she made for the Swedish folk song Två Konungabarn (‘Children of the Kings’), on which she plays the nyckelharpa (a keyed fiddle that produces drone sounds) which almost disappeared from music in the UK until it was rediscovered by the likes of the late early music specialist Clare Salaman.

Swedish Folk Song Två Konungabarn performed by Amalie Bruun (Myrkur) who sings and plays nyckelharpa

Folkesange features new arrangements of Scandinavian folk songs, and new songs written by Bruun, played by her on various traditional instruments including the mandola and lyre, both of which are stringed instruments. It was followed in late 2023 by her latest album, Spine which combines many of the styles of previous albums into a sophisticated whole, graced by her remarkably versatile voice.

Myrkur - image by Gobinder Jhitta

Myrkur – image by Gobinder Jhitta

Spine explores various themes from Bruun’s personal life. When she was making her previous album she fell pregnant, and the new album reflects her hopes and fears for motherhood. The idea of a spine that provides the title and front cover came to her during a scan when she could see her baby’s spine starting to grow. She realised, as she told New Noise Magazine, that she was making a spine for her baby, ‘He’s just coming into the world, and the fact that I was making that for someone else, this is so alien yet human.’ Hence the metal spine on the cover.

But the song ‘Blood is Gold’ is a product of another major life event; the death of her beloved father, Michael Bruun, in 2021. Other prog artists have been deeply affected by the death of their father. Steven Wilson dedicated his 2011 album Grace for Drowning ‘to my father, Michael George Wilson’ and a few years later admitted to Jerry Ewing of Prog that when writing his next album The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) (2013), ‘my father had just passed away when I wrote The Raven, so it stands to reason that I was in a much darker place then.’ And Roger Waters of Pink Floyd wrote a bitter account of the death of his father Eric Fletcher Waters in battle during the Second World War in the song When the Tigers Broke Free (released as a single in 1982; added to The Final Cut album by Pink Floyd in 2004).

Bruun’s father was also a musician and songwriter, and although he didn’t really talk to his daughter about his own music, the two played together and collaborated on her first solo album in 2006. She told New Noise that her father was very well-known in Denmark, ‘it just gives you comfort that everyone in my country knows him.’ To honour his name, she continues making her own music and also protects the copyright of her father’s songs. The title of the song My Blood is Gold refers to his music living on through her,

‘…after he died, I had this feeling his music lives on in me, in my blood’

My Blood Is Gold by Myrkur

The track begins with doom-laden piano and evocative strings from cellists Gyða Valtýsdóttir and Brent Arnold. Bruun’s voice enters, sombre, low in her range and funereal, as she describes the pain her father suffered from the chains of an uncaring world in which ‘all is fair in love and war.’ Her father has now been released from that pain, but she can still feel it. Eerie strings surround Bruun’s sepulchral voice, drenched in echo, as she falls into the ‘fire pit’ of the world of suffering and her voice sinks low into the pit. It rises again with passion as she describes her father’s final hour, ‘it’s hard to breathe’, as the track briefly takes on an epic quality in the chorus before it falls away again on the haunting words ‘my blood is gold.’ The track reaches a brief hiatus in which the voice is surrounded by a spectral choir and the strings descend in a short glissando as the ground falls away beneath us. The song begins again, languorously and almost unwillingly, as Bruun describes the terrible scene of despair that surrounds her, of ‘bodies scattered around.’ When the chorus returns it feels almost uplifting, with a choir of female voices joining in, but the energy drops again as the words ‘my blood is gold’ are repeated and the glacial piano motif of the start of the track returns. The track ends with a spine-tingling moment as the strings drift out of focus, eerie and unsettling, before reaching a tentative resolution. This deeply moving track perfectly describes Bruun’s despair at her father’s death and her resolve for his memory to live on through her music.

Myrkur’s European Tour starts in Berlin in April 2024, with UK dates in Manchester (9 April) and London (10 April). Spine is out now.

Sources

Douglas Menagh, New Noise Magazine – Interview – Amalie Bruun of Myrkur Talks ‘Spine’ (16/10/23)

Discogs, Michael Bruun Discography

Jerry Ewing, Prog Magazine The story of Steven Wilson’s Hand. Cannot. Erase. (February 2015) 

John Charles Holmes 1933 - 2024

Personal note: for the effect that my own Father had on my musical journey, see my tribute to him here.

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Off the Beaten Track Christmas Special: December Skies by Steven Wilson

YouTube Image of December Skies by Steven Wilson

If Steven Wilson had written a song called December Skies in the early years of his band Porcupine Tree it would have been a dreamy, spacey extended jam with poetic, earnestly abstract lyrics. For later Porcupine Tree it would have been an angst-ridden, prog-metal song, probably featuring lyrics about disaffected teenagers or a serial killer. In the early years of his solo career it might have been a deeply-felt, intensely introverted indie song with slightly abstruse lyrics. In the middle of his solo career, it could have been a ghost story with existential tendencies. Most recently, it could have been a ten-minute prog epic with elements of spiritual jazz and electronica, beautifully mixed in immersive surround sound with a stunning video directed by Miles Skarin. All of them would have been profound.

So it came as a surprise to many, not least to Wilson himself, that he has written a bona fide Christmas Song… Just to be clear, this is the same songwriter who used to introduce his song Routine when he played it live as his attempt to write the most depressing song ever written (it’s also one of his best songs). Wilson, when challenged recently by a friend to write a festive ditty, decided to call upon the services of ChatGPT to write the lyrics for him. To be fair, his instructions to the chatbot included the Wilsonesque sentiments, ‘Don’t mention Christmas’, (bah humbug!) and ‘make it feel cold and lonely.’

The video for December Skies was generated using a purpose built AI system created by Miles Skarin

Wilson’s artificially intelligent lyricist has done a reasonable job; the words are good enough to have graced many a past Christmas number one, but it feels there is a slight emptiness at their heart, perhaps because it’s difficult to ignore the fact that they are the product of artificial intelligence. But, as he does with all his projects, Wilson has applied great musical intelligence, artistry and the highest possible production skills, even when he is working very quickly, and perhaps slightly tongue in cheek as he may be here. The song has all the requisite elements of a traditional Christmas hit – a slightly melancholy verse with some juicy minor chords; acoustic guitars and a heavily echoed vocals (as at the start of Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas), the sound of sleigh bells; an uplifting chorus; some Christmas carol-like tunes (in this case the sound of a harmonium and bells playing passages that could have come from Carol of the Bells, the early 20th century Christmas carol); orchestral strings and rich backing vocals; the obligatory key change at the end. Add to that some gorgeous slide guitar work from Randy McStine, who joined Wilson on the two recent Porcupine Tree tours, and the song is actually very good. It’s the kind of song that could have been a Christmas number one, in the traditional style of Cliff Richard’s two solo Christmas chart toppers, or David Essex’s number two hit A Winter’s Tale – which like Steven Wilson’s is beautifully crafted, rather melancholy song, and also doesn’t specifically mention Christmas.

Wilson has said ‘”I didn’t think I had it in me.” To be honest, neither did we, but Merry Christmas, Steven!

No chatbots were harmed (or used!) in the writing of this blog.

Update on 19 November 2024: December Skies was released exclusively Steven Wilson’s YouTube channel on 14 December 2023. Physical editions of the single, on cd and vinyl, are due for release on 6 December 2024.

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Off the Beaten Track #4: Autumn by Peter Hammill

Peter Hammill and Guitar from the Cover of Over

Peter Hammill, lead singer with the English prog rock band Van der Graaf Generator wrote the song ‘Autumn’ for his 1977 solo album Over before he was thirty, but it is imbued with the wisdom and sadness of a much older man. Many of the tracks on Over mourn the loss of a long-term relationship, but this song describes a different kind of loss, much later in life. The protagonist and his wife have reached the autumn of their lives and their children have fled the nest. They have given their children everything they could but now receive little in return.

The song features only Hammill’s multi-tracked voice, piano and the violin of Graham Smith who was briefly a member of Van der Graaf and played on their 1977 album The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome. The simplicity of the production perfectly matches the painful, inward nature of the emotions expressed.

The vocals are raw, the voice cracking with emotion and bewilderment at the protagonist’s loss, low in the vocal range, sometimes half-spoken and intimate. At times the baritone voice is joined in a melancholy duet by a falsetto voice an octave above, perhaps the voice of his wife who shares his loss.

The piano part features a bleak, almost tuneless falling motif like the last leaf of autumn drifting confusedly from a tree. The violin is close-miked, naked and passionate, like the last raging against the dying of the light.

The song almost breaks down completely about 90 seconds in, but manages to rouse itself as the voice becomes almost incoherent with pain. At around 2.40 some sort of equilibrium is reached, but the voice cracks again as the protagonist laments his lost dreams.

The track ends with chillingly poignant lines which describe a similar sense of loss that future generations will suffer,

I wonder how long
It will be till this song
Is sung by our own sons and daughters?

A beautiful, achingly sombre conclusion to an immensely powerful song.

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Off the Beaten Track #3: Start Again by Beatrix Players

‘Start Again’ is the first single from the forthcoming album by Beatrix Players, Living & Alive. The song is about founding member, lead singer and main songwriter Amy Birks, re-forming the band after a hiatus following the first album Magnified released in March 2017. Since then, Birks has released two solo albums, All That I am and All That I Was and In Our Souls.

Instrumentally, there is more of an ensemble feel than on the previous Beatrix Players album, which felt more piano-led – although the opening theme here is provided by the piano. It’s a lovely complex mix, full of subtle touches, with multiple layers that reveal their secrets on repeated listening. Details that stand out are the delicate cello parts, elegant guitar, the proggy flute solo and the warm backing vocals towards the end of the track. Amy Birks’ vocals are rich and empathetic, particularly in the ear-worm of a chorus, and there is a folky, almost Celtic instrumental breakdown. A welcome return for a band who have been away for too long.

From the album Living & Alive, which is released on 22 September.
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Off the Beaten Track # 2: Pigeon Drummer by no-man

schoolyard ghosts by no-man

Art-rock band no-man were founded in 1987 when Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness started writing music together. They briefly flirted with mainstream success in 1990 when their single release colours was Single Of The Week in Melody Maker and Sounds, leading to record label and publishing deals. Wilson went on to have much more success with Porcupine Tree and as a solo artist, but no-man continued to release albums sporadically, including their most recent, love you to bits in 2019. The duo have more recently collaborated on their podcast The Album Years.

‘Pigeon Drummer’ comes from the band’s sixth album Schoolyard Ghosts released in May 2008. The song evolved from a demo by Tim Bowness called ‘City Sounds’ which can be heard here. Bowness later used the lyrics on ‘wherever there is light.’ The track ‘Pigeon Drummer’ was written at a time when Wilson was starting to move away from Porcupine Tree to focus on his solo career. His first solo album Insurgentes was released in November 2008.

What is remarkable about this track, and some of the songs on Insurgentes, is the sudden and shocking descent into extreme noise after a beautifully melodic section. This happens very quickly on ‘Pigeon Drummer’ after only about 30 seconds. When Wilson uses the same technique on Insurgentes, on songs like ‘Salvaging’, the noise section appear much later in the track. Wilson had been listening to the noise project Merzbow, started in 1979 by the Japanese artist Masami Akita, and enjoying the disruptive effect the use of noise had on melodic tracks, like obliterating an Old Master painting with black ink.

Wilson has often spoken of his love of cinema, and the term ‘cinematic’ often applies to both the sound of his music and the structure of his songs. Bowness’s demo version, ‘City Sounds’ and ‘Pigeon Drummer’ share a cinematic structure. ‘Pigeon Drummer’ opens with a music box. After a burst of noise, there’s a guitar theme that might remind some listeners of the guitar at the start of ‘Dream is Collapsing’ from Hans Zimmer’s score for Inception (2010). But if that film is science-fiction, a deeply philosophical, multi-layered thriller, the no-man song is perhaps closer in structure to the European art-house movies Wilson so admires. The juxtaposition of sweetly haunting melodic sections with extreme noise has the non-linear narrative of films by the Spanish iconoclast Luis Buñuel.

The track also seems to draw from another film genre; horror. The song adopts the trope of contrasting an insouciantly sun-lit scene with a subsequent scene of violent horror. The music box could have come from Philip Glass’s score for the original Candyman film. The tolling bell, and the ethereal choir could also have come from a horror film score. There’s also something unsettling about Bowness’s vocals, which are as sweetly and gently delivered as ever but heavily compressed to give them a slightly inhuman quality, a technique Wilson often uses on Porcupine Tree albums such as on the songs about serial killers on In Absentia (2002)

Whether you choose to view ‘Pigeon Drummer’ as a slice of art/noise rock, a homage to the structure of avant-garde European cinema, or the soundtrack to a horror film, it’s an extremely evocative and effective piece of music.

This post was updated on 29 August 2023 at 10.50 to add references to Bowness’s demo version ‘City Sounds.’

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Off the Beaten Track # 1: Burn the World by Hats off Gentlemen It’s Adequate

Off the Beaten Track Logo - nick-holmes-music.com

The first in a new series of reviews of individual tracks that are well worth a listen

The core of the modestly-named prog rock band Hats Off Gentlemen it’s Adequate consists of Malcolm Galloway (vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and producer) and Mark Gatland (bass, backing vocals, keyboards and co-producer). Burn the World is the first single from their new album An Introduction To The Light of Ancient Mistakes. The two gentlemen have been playing together since they were at school.

The subject of the song is climate change. Galloway describes the protagonist as a ‘regretful human’ considering the choices we could have made if we didn’t want to ‘ruin the world’,

“All the things we could have done, and we chose to burn the world“

In Galloway’s view, ‘We have amazing potential, but risk making terrible decisions because we assume that someone else will sort things out.’

The track has something of the atmosphere of a Pink Floyd song, without feeling derivative or like mere pastiche. It begins with a contemplative guitar, soon joined by Galloway’s vocals which are reminiscent of the very English, yearning style of Tim Bowness of the band no-man, albeit with a deeper baritone range. The depth of the baritone voice is matched by the robust bass guitar which is beautifully recorded. The production is sparse and limpid, emphasising the gentle melancholy of the song. The chorus is hauntingly simple, with a gorgeous falling chord sequence that lingers in the mind long after the song has vanished The track gradually builds to a bluesy guitar solo which nods to the great David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. It’s a suitably epic conclusion to a song which is far more than adequate.